Beneath the Burn

by Pam Godwin

  What about his song Charlee? The title was convincing with two e’s, its passionate lyrics aching with love and regret. Was it written for her? If it was, she wanted the opportunity to try to free him from the pain woven into those words.

  She rolled to her side and studied his face, where it cocked awkwardly over the side of the bed. A shadow of whiskers darkened his jaw. The curves of his lips looked as though they had been drawn on, every crease sketched to perfection. He was so devastatingly handsome, it hurt to look at him. No wonder he was the ladies’ first pick.

  The masculine angles of his face begged to be gentled. Would his taut tanned skin be warm?

  She crawled off the bed and crouched beneath his face. Reaching out tentative fingers, she brushed his eyelid. It was soft and twitchy. Yes, there was life in there. She traced the arch of one cheek, stroked through the thick brown hair that curled over the tip of his ear, and followed the sinews in his neck. Could she lift his shirt and peek at his back without waking him?

  He opened his eyes. Glazed and dark, they blinked at her. And blinked again. “Emb I dea…iiidth?”

  She jerked her hand back. “Are you dead? No, but you’re headed there at the rate you’re going.”

  He swallowed. “I muth be dead. You’re…you’re…” His jaw stretched open, his chest heaved, and he reared back.

  She dropped to her ass and rolled as a wash of vomit hit the can on the floor. After a few heavy exhales, he lowered his head to the bed and mumbled, “Charlee.”

  He remembered her.

  Whatever, bitch. He called me Charlee right before he ejaculated.

  She sucked in a breath and with it the rancid stench of puke. A few splatters had hit her chest despite her efforts. She fought her gag reflex and ran to the closet, stripping her shirt on the way.

  As she shrugged on one of his t-shirts— a vintage Dead Milkmen shirt? Yes!—she told herself that he was every bit as fucked up as she was. The only thing they could develop beyond friendship was a madness shared by two.

  She wanted to be supportive. She wanted to finish his tattoo, but she had to be careful with her feelings, and most definitely with his. More than that, she had to make sure Roy didn’t learn about her interest in Jay Mayard.

  22

  Charlee returned to Jay’s bedside, wearing his t-shirt instead of his puke. He hadn’t stirred. The sheets appeared clean. There were a few drops on the carpet, but the can caught most of it. A practiced move, no doubt.

  She rinsed out the bucket in the bathroom and scrubbed the carpet with a towel that probably cost more than her entire wardrobe. Then she stood beside his head, staring at him. Should she move him?

  Stop staring at him. Stop thinking about him. She should find out what was keeping Laz and Nathan, but she didn’t want to leave him. What if he needed her?

  That was when she knew she should leave the room. Her longing for a man she’d met three long years ago was surfacing and she didn’t know what to do with that. Panic flooded her. She tucked her ridiculous feelings away and fled the room.

  A few empty foyers led her to the hush of voices in the suite’s library. Nathan and the driver—what was her name? Tony?—sat on velvet chaises amidst the shelves of leatherbound books. It wasn’t the company Nathan kept that surprised her, so much as how close they leaned toward one another.

  Nathan laughed at something the woman said, and he turned his head. Their eyes caught. “Hey Charlee. Everything okay?”

  She crossed the room and settled in the closest chair. “Jay’s out for the night. I’ll talk to him tomorrow if he’s not busy.”

  The woman stood with her shoulders kicked back. “This is a pleasure trip. They don’t have anything booked.”

  Nathan rose. “Let me do some introductions. This is Master Sergeant Maryanna Tony, U.S. Marine Corps. She’s leads the protective team for the band.” He actually puffed out his chest. “Master Sergeant. Meet Charlee Grosky.”

  A fellow Marine. This would be interesting. “She outranks you.”

  He stared at his feet with a smile playing on his lips.

  “Nice to officially meet you, Master…er…Tony… How should I address you?”

  “Tony is fine. And I’m retired, Nathan.” Her rigid posture mirrored his, but her teasing expression softened her pretty features.

  He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “We were just discussing escort formation techniques for protection while on foot. Their area security procedures for traveling and the perimeter barriers at their L.A. home are—”

  “Impressive?”

  He grinned. “Yeah.”

  Oh, yeah. Tony had nuzzled right into his heart. He’d never get it back. “Sharing trade secrets then?”

  They looked at one another with blank expressions. Must have been some kind of Marine language. But beneath his usual stiffness, there was a phlegmatic feel to the way he observed—and didn’t observe—his surroundings. He trusted the pretty Marine. “Did you tell her?”

  He palmed his nape. “Some of it. She knows who Roy is. In fact, he recruited her for his VIP protection personnel.”

  Jesus, Nathan really did trust her. She looked at Tony and felt a little intimidated by the air of competence exuding from her. Her crisp black pants suit, alert eyes, and fierce set to her jaw were enough to act as a deterrent to would-be celebrity maulers. “Turning down that job was probably the smartest thing you’ve ever done.”

  “So I hear.” Her face gave away nothing. “My sidearm is useless without fingers to fire it.”

  A chain of memories coiled its way around her. It tightened when Nathan asked, “You ready to go?”

  Until that moment, her nerves had been less sensitive since they arrived at the suite. “You know, I haven’t thought of Roy once since we’ve been here.”

  He squatted before her and enveloped her hands with his. “I feel safe, too. It’s nice, huh?”

  “Then stay.”

  She turned toward the voice behind her.

  Laz leaned against the door jamb, hands in his pockets. “Stay the night. I’ve already tucked the guys in. You can have my room.”

  When did the guys return? Another guard must’ve gone back for them. A laugh bubbled out of her. “Did you read them a story before you tucked them in?”

  “Yeah, it was a picture book. Lots of boobs.”

  She shook her head, smiling at the image of him caring for his drunken bandmates. “I don’t want to kick you out of your room.”

  “It’s yours. Stay.” He batted his eyes. “Please?”

  How could she say no to him? Why would she want to? For once in her life, she could wake up surrounded by luxury without being held as a prisoner.

  She looked at the man perched before her. “Well?”

  23

  Charlee shimmied out of her jeans, slid the Bodyguard 380 under the pillow, and fell back into a cloud of luxurious bedding. “This is the life.”

  Nathan said something to the guard in the hallway and closed the door. “We have a bodyguard.” He scratched his head, his voice flattened with disbelief. “He’s going to stand out there all night.”

  She pulled the blankets up to her chin. “Maybe we can sleep with both of our eyes closed tonight?”

  He perched on the other side of the bed and tugged off his pants. Then he clicked off the light and lay on his side to face her. “Crane still hasn’t found any connection between these guys and Roy, so yeah, we’re sleeping well tonight.”

  She smiled, and it was bitter sweet. “The one night you could sleep alone, yet here I am. You’re stuck with me as usual.”

  They’d shared a bed for three years, too concerned about the other’s safety not to. The worst part of that had been the way Nathan just accepted his celibacy in this life with her, making her his responsibility and giving up everything for her and his revenge.

  He shoved her shoulder. “I’m not stuck with you and have never felt that way. Besides, how else will I trap Roy? You’re my bait
.”

  It was her turn to shove him. “Ass.”

  He might’ve been driven by revenge, but three years of simply trying to exist without being caught left him frustrated and without a plan to bring down Roy. Moreover, if anything happened to her, he would see it as failing his brother. Again. In truth, if Nathan wanted to use her for his own end, he would’ve been justified in doing so. She was the reason Noah was dead after all.

  A burn torched her throat, and she swallowed through it. “I might be doing a couple tattoos tomorrow, so I’ll need to get my supplies from the apartment, okay?”

  “A couple? Laz and…”

  “Jay.” Hopefully. There was so much hope in that name.

  “Be careful with him, Charlee. The last thing you need is another obsessive man.”

  She tensed. There was a lingering fear in her that she might somehow attract compulsive men. If she could entice a monster like Roy, it might happen again with another man. Jay wasn’t a monster. He wasn’t Roy. “He’s different.”

  “Yeah, he’s a whole other breed of messed up.” He kissed her brow. “Sleep well, sweetheart.”

  That he could count on.

  24

  Jay woke up shaking. Charlee had invaded his dreams again, but this time was different.

  The blue-eyed beauty had been haloed in flames of red. Her fiery hair swept over her tiny shoulders and cascaded in curtains around her. He clutched the bedding. She was so fucking beautiful.

  He closed his eyes, tried to push himself back into the dream. He found her and she saw him, saw into him. He could hear the happy tune of her humming. Her tattoo gun was buzzing against his back. She touched his shoulder with her fingertips, with her sweet lips. She actually touched him, and it was the best sensation he’d ever experienced. He turned his face to capture her mouth.

  Gone. She was fucking gone.

  Fuck. He punched the pillow. Fucking let her go.

  He rolled out of bed and nausea fisted in his gut. He plodded through the room in a hangover daze on uncoordinated, hundred-pound feet. At least there was a bright start. He didn’t have to chase any clingy strangers from his bed.

  In the bathroom, he shed his shirt and shorts and turned his back to the mirror. Why did he torment himself everyday by staring at something that would never come to fruition?

  He looked over his shoulder and saw the finished illustration the way she might’ve seen it. He saw the blaze, the heat, the passion in the detail. She didn’t cover the scars. She added more, the edges burning and twisting away from the flames. It was the steel etched beneath the melted skin that fortified him. He wanted to be that iron man underneath. She’d seen something in him he hadn’t been able to see himself.

  Before Charlee, he couldn’t look at his scars without hurtling back to the weather-worn shed with no light, no food, and no toys or human contact. The sooty insides of the cast-iron cooker and the rumble it made when it fired up still made him ball his fists so hard his nails left indents in his skin. And the woman with the empty eyes who kept him in the shed and forced him in the oven…

  The room tilted sideways, and he caught the edge of the counter. His breath pushed through his teeth in a wet hiss. He fumbled through the medicine cabinet. Bottles and soaps tumbled out. Where was his snuff box? He removed the toilet lid. Son of a bitch. His vials were gone. Fucking Laz.

  He grabbed his toiletry bag and dug out the nasal spray bottle. He shook it to mix the coke with the water and ethanol he’d drizzled in it. A few sprays in each nostril, and ahh….

  His body awoke. The tingles lifted him, and the pull of gravity released. He smiled. The world was his happy place.

  He buzzed through his shower, rubbing soap over his defined chest, his hard abs, and…Jesus, look at that massive cock. My God, he was a virile man. Women wanted him. Men wanted to be him. He needed to get out there and fuck the world. That was what he’d do. New York City was waking and it wanted to spread its legs for Jay Fucking Mayard.

  Showered, shaved, and dressed in his tightest leathers, he strode through the bedroom. His heart pounded to do…something.

  He swung open the door and tripped, catching himself on the jamb. A bundle of blankets lay at his feet. Chaotic chunks of gelled hair stuck out of one end. Why the hell was Laz sleeping on the floor?

  He looked like a cuddly little kitten curled up in a ball. He kicked it.

  “Ow. Fuck.”

  “Why are you sleeping outside my door?”

  “My bed is occupied.” The bastard pulled the blanket over his head.

  He kicked him again.

  The blanket went flying in a cartwheel of fists hitting air. “Fuck. Quit fucking kicking me.”

  “Tell me you did not let those girls stay in your bed.”

  “No.” Laz glared at him. “Piss off. The sun’s barely up, and you’re already fucking high.”

  “No you won’t tell me, or no they didn’t stay?” His teeth sawed the inside of his cheek.

  “No, they didn’t stay.”

  The sawing stopped but only for a heartbeat.

  “Someone else stayed.” Laz smiled up at him, and he didn’t like the look of it.

  “Who?”

  The fucker stretched like a lazy cat, his smile turning more Cheshire by the second. “Guess.”

  Okay, he was up for the challenge. His dick twitched. Yeah, he was definitely up. “A woman?”

  The grinning cat nodded.

  “Is she hot?”

  “You’re seriously asking me that after the strays you let in last night?”

  Ugh. He didn’t remember what they looked like. All he remembered was tying down their wandering hands.

  Screw the Q&A. He moved through the suite, fueled to fuck. He didn’t care if she was a Laz leftover. He vibrated with a sense of health and vitality. It was the blow, he knew, and he was about ten minutes from crashing. Fuck it. In that moment— “Raaargh!” —he felt fucking great.

  Edison stood post outside the junior suite wearing his spiffy suit and even spiffier com device sticking in his ear. He had no business standing there. “What are you doing here?”

  “Tony’s orders.”

  A sudden surge of paranoia rocked him on his heels. No, it was too soon to crash. Just a few more minutes. “You’re relieved of your post. Go away.” He grabbed the door knob and stormed toward the bed.

  Red hair filled his horizon. Just like his dream. It flowed in sheets over her back, her petite arms, and curled around her pillow. He crept forward and knelt on the floor beside the bed. His fingers shook as he brushed the soft strands from her face.

  His breath caught in his throat. His chest burned. Oh God, the coke must have been cut with something. He was hallucinating.

  It was the best trip of his life. He held himself motionless, savoring the fantasy, afraid if he touched her again, his fingers would wisp the phantasm away.

  A man-shaped lump moved in the bedding behind her. Then its head popped up and glared at him over her shoulder.

  What the fuck? “Who the hell are you?”

  “Lower your voice.”

  Charlee’s ghost stretched her arms over her head and rolled to her back. Was that his Dead Milkmen t-shirt? Holy hell, the girl was real. His stomach dropped. Did Laz find and fuck a Charlee-look-alike? “I really want to fuck you.”

  She opened her eyes. Blinding spheres of blue hit him in the chest just as the man’s fist slammed into his face. His back hit the floor, and he stared at the garish gold scrollwork on the ceiling, smiling. Those eyes couldn’t be cloned. Charlee was alive.

  The euphoria evaporated into a murderous cloud. She was in bed with a man and the fucker was standing over him, shooting daggers as if he owned the place and the girl. Fuck that. “Get out.”

  The man’s arrogant chin lifted, and he stepped back, eyes on Charlee. “Come on, sweetheart.”

  No way in hell. He jumped to his feet and swayed. The sudden loss of his high only added to his irritation. “She’s not g
oing anywhere.”

  “Are you kidding me right now?” She sidled between them with her hands on her hips. “I think you both need a timeout. Nathan, why did you hit him? And Jay, you don’t get to decide if I stay.”

  Goddamned adorable. “You’re wearing my shirt.”

  “Yeah, well, you puked on mine.”

  He groaned. Smooth, Jay. He dropped his chin on his chest. Shit, what had she witnessed last night? “How did you get here?” he asked her bare feet.

  She snapped her fingers in his face. “Quit sulking.”

  Her gorgeous eyes were intense and aimed at him. Jesus, that one look from her was a punch in the groin.

  “I ran into Laz in the Village. What’s wrong with you?”

  “He’s crashing.” Laz’s voice drifted from the foyer and crawled under his skin.

  “Scram, Laz. I’ve got this.”

  Disappointment dominated her glare. He’d let her down. A blurry fog of doom closed in on him, drawing him toward its center, but the man hovering too goddamned close to her incited him to fight through the haze. “Who is this guy?”

  “Jay.” Laz was wearing his stern face. He hated that face. “Listen, buddy. Nathan is Charlee’s husband.”

  The whole fucking world crashed down upon him in a turbulent sea of red.

  25

  The room broke out in maelstrom of tumbling bodies, save for Charlee, who refused to participate in a wrestling match of male egos. But maybe she could nullify it. “I’m not married. We’re not together.”

  Jay swung an arm at Nathan’s head. His fist overshot and cracked the leg of a baroque table. The misfire seemed to surprise him, and he sprung from the floor. Shuffling backward, he edged the room. His face transformed from rage to despair and back to rage as he looked from her to Nathan.

  “Don’t do anything crazy.” Laz held up his hands, circling him. “Think of Charlee, man.”

  “Don’t bring me into this. I’m trying to stay the hell away from crazy.” She was brimming with enough of it herself because all she wanted to do was kiss that stricken look off Jay’s face. “Is cocaine doing this to him?”